


How to Train Your Droid

by rainbowagnes



Series: It will rise in perfect light [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Actually a boy, Finn is a Good Human, Gen, K makes a new friend, Pre-TFA, Rey and K chat about boys, Rey is adopted AU, Specifically Finn, Technically should have been a part of "many another night" but I couldn't resist, The Rey and K friendship is all I need, and also mid-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-14 20:44:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10544052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowagnes/pseuds/rainbowagnes
Summary: K is introduced to a new member of the family.Twelve years later, K does not trust her new friend and wishes to inform her.Sequel to "I Love You Too Much."





	

12 YEARS AGO  
Hosnian Prime

It was one thing to be depowered and left in the basement, like some common service droid.  


It was quite another to do so without any prior warning, with no notice aside from Cassian muttering that he'd explain everything later.

Now K was blinking back to life in a dark, moldy basement, surrounded by piles of rusting parts, cans of emergency supplies for hurricanes, and mildewing Life Day decorations. Time had passed since K was last active. It could have been days or a year, and K wouldn't know. The Captain was notoriously difficult to read. 

Cassian sat in front of him with a massive cup of black coffee. "Welcome back, amigo." 

"That was a most unwelcome surprise. I'd expect it from Jyn, maybe, but you? I did not appreciate it."

"Couldn't be helped, buddy. There was a bit of an emergency." He leans back against his chain and rubs his temples. K recognises both deep tiredness and spiked levels of dopamine and seratonin. An unusual combination, typically brought on with the completion of some sort of major project. Although K can't imagine what it might be. Cassian certainly is setting off too many of the sensors that indicate HAPPY to be discussing imminent emergencies. 

"What sort of emergency? Hurricanes, floods, rodents of un-"

"There's a new member of the family." 

Oh. OH. Jyn Erso was getting on in years, but K supposed she was still technically in the acceptable range of fertility for a healthy human woman, albeit with increasingly greater risk. K hadn't noticed any of the typical hormonal surges that characterised pregnant human women, but Jyn was some form of aggressive, angry, or irritated most of the time, so that could be written off. So this is why Cassian had turned him off. K felt betrayed, both because he had not been informed, and also because all simulations had indicated a future for him free of any of Jyn Erso's offspring and their genetically probable diminutive heights and aggression issues. 

"She's only been home a few days, but we didn't want to shock her. And you're certainly a bit of a shock." 

Been home a few days? That meant the child had already been born, and K would have little chance to adjust to the new familial arrangement that would no doubt ensue. 

"This is a shocking development." 

"Yeah, yeah, I know. A surprise for all of us, definetely. None more than Jyn."

"What was this child's date of birth?" 

"Jyn thinks maybe six years ago? I think seven- malnutrition does strange, horrible things to children. I know. I was-" 

"SEVEN YEARS AGO?" This answer does not fit into any of K's pre recorded frams of logic. Sev-

"Oh. Uh, Jyn and I are adopting a little girl. Have adopted. She's waiting upstairs to meet you." 

For a minute, the only thing running through K's circuits is RELIEF. "That is excellent news. Given her advanced age of forty-two years, it will statistically drop the chances of my having to share the future galaxy with any of Jyn Erso's genes to near zero. And you will have a daughter infinitely less likely to suffer from diminutive height or aggression issues."

"If I hear one word of any of that, ever again, I will depower you again and leave you in this basement until Life Day. You understand?" 

K can tell from his tone that Cassian means it. It's harsher than he's ever spoken to K before in any situation that didn't feature moral danger. Cassian's priorities have rearranged, and K doesn't like it.

\--- 

He follows Cassian up the narrow stairs out of the basement and into the living room. The room is flooded with late-afternoon light, and K immediately recognises the sound of a tea kettle on to boil. One of Jyn Erso's nervous habits. Whatever could she be nervous about? 

Jyn sits on the couch in the middle of the room, tucked around a very small girl. For a second, K has to re-process what Cassian said. Adopted she may be, but she still looks almost exactly like what a hypothetical child of Jyn and Cassian would look like. Straight brown hair, delicate features, narrow brown eyes. Jyn holds the girl's hands. 

Medical scans on the girl indicate a host of medical issues that are currently in the process of being urgently treated. Malnutrition, prolongued dehydration, several infections of the bacterial and parasitic variety. She also shows signs of extensive exposure to heat and UV rays, indicative of time spent on a planet with an ozone layer insufficient for maintaining the health of unaltered humans, particularly children. Where did Cassian and Jyn ever find this girl? 

Jyn wraps an arm around the girl's delicate frame with an entirely uncharacteristic tenderness and whispers into her hair. "Are you ready to meet K, widget?" She glares over the top of the girl's small head. 

"Ready, mum."

"He used to be an Imperial droid, you know, but you mustn't fear when you see him. He will be nothing but a friend to you." 

"I know what they look like, and I'm not afraid of them. I used to like finding their heads, because I'd get a whole gallon of water." 

"I'd prefer my head remain intact, thank you, although you will recieve far more than a gallon of water around here." Jyn, the girl, and Cassian all suddenly turn to look at K, Jyn staring bloody murder and Cassian almost laughing. The girl just looks more curious than anything. 

"I've never seen one of you alive before. You're very tall."

"And you are very short." From the look on her face Jyn is about to sell K's head herself, but the girl giggles. 

"Ah, mi sol, you've met K. K, this is Rey. Rey, this is K." Cassian has a nervous smile plastered on his face. 

"I'm Rey," she tells him despite the redundency. "I think I'm seven years old. I like flowers and empanadas. I used to be from Jakku, but I like it here." She finishes with a smile and holds her hand out to shake. 

K has to crouch down. His hand is cold from the basement and she yelps when she touches it. "I am K-2SO. I am a formal imperial extermi-" 

"Former Imperial droid. But you just do repair work now, eh? Help around the shop?" Cassian feels the unecessary need to censor him. 

"I like you. Our names rhyme. Rey and K. But I was Rey first." 

He does not correct her. "It is nice to meet you. I hope you will be happy here." 

"I've always wanted a friend who's a droid. Will you be my friend?" 

"Of course, Rey." He sees Cassian's expression visually soften. "I will be your friend." 

"Good. Cause I want to stay here forever and ever."

It's an unwarranted change in code, the sort prompted by environmental stimuli rather than manual re-coding, but K feels it happening none the less. There's still the original source code. PROTECT CASSIAN. And it's subsequent additions: PROTECT JYN ERSO and PROTECT BODHI ROOK. But now there's a new code in his system, bright and overriding. PROTECT REY. 

\-----oOo------  
NOW 

K waits until the boy had passed out on the Falcon's couch before he confronts Rey, which he calculates will afford him the smallest possible chance of Finn barging in.

He finds Rey outside the control room, staring aimlessly at the useless fragment of map. She's changed out of her Imperial disguise into an outfit K recognizes as being one of her favorite- green cargo pants, scuffed canvas plimsoles, a light cotton top covered with embroidered flowers that K recognizes is not a practical choice but an expression of the human need for COMFORT, for home. 

"Comms on this bloody bucket of bolts are down. It looks like we're just stuck in empty space." She rotates the holomap, trying to look at it from another direction, and for a moment, K can filter out everything- the hum of a ship in some perpetual state of breaking, the irritating chatter of BB8, Finn snoring in the next room over. The long red gash on Rey's arm, where she was grazed with blaster fire. For a minute, Rey looks young- so young, even though she's older than Cassian was when he first reprogrammed K. 

But environmental stimuli change. Nineteen on Fest in a civil war means something entirely different than nineteen on Hosnian Prime. Rey's just a girl, a girl who looks like she could have just been in her family's workshop, staying up to late to marathon holonovelas. 

Could, if it weren't for the melancholy that K recognises in both preliminary hormonal scans and the way that she rubs the kyber crystal necklace in her hands. K hasn't seen this kind of sadness in Rey in years, and it is not an appropriate change for her wellbeing and growth. 

"I suggest that to conserve money and resources, we push Finn out of the airlock. Or if we are feeling extra generous, just leave him at the next spaceport." The first suggestion was an attempt at HUMOR, but from the way she's glaring at him, it didn't work. 

K drops the heavy quilted parka he went to the trouble of digging up around her shoulders. She's used to sub-tropical temperatures and statistically is likely feeling cold, and therefor more susceptible to whatever disease the newcomer may be exposing her to. She pulls the jacket closer around her- "snuggles" might be the word a human might use- and looks up. "Thanks." 

"Rey, I do not think this is a good idea."

"Finn is part of the resistance. You heard it from him." 

"You have surely gathered significant data to suggest otherwise." 

"It doesn't matter. He's not First Order, and he's the best we have to go on to finding Dameron." 

"Don't justify human connection with technical uses. It is most unbecoming." Of the many good qualities Rey stands to inherit from Cassian, this isn't one of them." 

"Rich of you to say. We need him, K. I can't shoot anything in a real firefight-" She's never had to before- "and he can. And things are probably going to go to hell again before we can find Poe."

"His presence is provoking something in you, Rey." The heart of the matter that K wishes to discuss but isn't sure how to address. 

She crosses her arms and glares at him with such a familiar look that sometimes K has to remind himself that she is not, in fact, the genetic daughter of either of his original re-programmers. 

"No, he isn't." 

"Sweaty palms, surging heart rates in his presence, spiking dopamine levels, contracting and dilating pupils. Unmistakable biologic signs of some sort of change, whether you admit it or not." 

"Not happening." She pointedly goes back to focusing on the maps. "We aren't sending Finn out into empty space, and you will be nice to him."

"You're smarter than this, Rey. He may have some sort of virus that is promoting these changes in you. I hear there's been a recent outbreak of Torisian Toxic Flu." 

"I already got the vaccine." 

"He may have a mutated form of Torisian Toxic Flu that is incurable with human medicine. These things are serious dangers, Rey. Don't laugh." 

But laugh she does, and even if he is mildly aggravated by her stubborn dismissal of his serious concerns for her health and safety, he is glad he has made her at least temporarily happy. 

"Fine. I see I cannot change your mind on this matter. But there are some very important things about Finn you must know. The first is that there is a 87% chance Finn is lying to you." 

"Fantastic." Rey has never been particularly good at reading people, not like she is at understanding the codes of droids. It's one area in which K has endeavored to help her, every since she was an eight year old getting picked on on the playground. He had protected her from bullies then, but the end result had been angry parents and being banned from the four-block radius of her primary school. 

Now, K has resolved to be more delicate in the approach. 

"There is also a 97% chance that Finn is a good man." K doesn't fully finish computing the data until he says it out loud, but he cannot see any obvious scientific flaw in the computations. There certainly isn't any malice involved, any wish to harm Rey. If that where the case, K would have pushed him out of the airlock long before. "Based on scans, I can suggest Finn has had a past a soldier, but comparing him to scans of your m-" 

"I know. I know Finn is a good man. I can feel him in the Force." 

K has sensors for heat, motion, location, sound, and radiation, but none for the Force. None for this mysterious and utterly unscientific Force which has guided Rey since childhood, guided her all the way on this mission to Jakku. 

"Finn is a part of the Force?"

She nodds, her voice quavering. The Force has always been a difficult subject for Rey, something that ties her to a past she wants to forget and not a future on Hosnian Prime. "Stronger than almost anyone I've ever known. Stronger than Abuela Lyra or Uncle Chirrut. But different. And he's just waking up." 

There's a sound of terrific clanging from the kitchen, followed by irritated beeping from BB-8. Finn lets off a string of curses that would be impressive to any one who had grown up in proximity to Jyn Erso. "In more ways than one." 

Rey picks herself up and is about to investigate when K pulls her back. "I said there is a 97% chance than Finn is a good man. That leaves a 3% chance that he is a murderer bent on killing us all. If that happens, you will have to do the explaining to your mother." 

"Thanks, K. Appreciate it." She pats him familiarly on the shoulder, even though she has to stand on her toes to do so. 

He watches her walk off to deal with whatever commotion Finn has caused. K realizes with a start that his core code is self-mutating. PROTECT REY is still there, running strong. But there's more to it too. Rey isn't a little girl anymore. HELP REY. HELP REY ACCOMPLISH HER MISSION. 

And, underneath it, unwarranted but worming it's way in there as well. PROTECT FINN. INFORM FINN THAT HE IS A GOOD MAN. 

**Author's Note:**

> How does K scientifically know Finn is a good man? By comparing him to scans of other GOOD HUMANS- Cassian, Jyn, and Bodhi particularly. And seeing commonality. 
> 
> Notes- if you want more of this, it's really just a chapter from partway into "For Many Another Night." I'd very much appreciate if you kept reading!


End file.
